[Tristan Lall]

I'm getting the impression that FIRST is correct in their Q&A answer (in terms of restricting old robot parts that are/were COTS) but is doing a poor job of explaining the distinction between that situation and the use of the same parts as COTS items in general.

As I read the rules, for the current robot, you can use a currently-COTS IFI chassis, even if your chassis was included in a kit, as long as you never used it on a previous robot. (The rules require that it is generally available now on COTS terms. It doesn't actually have to have been bought or acquired while COTS.) <R32> clearly applies only to old robot parts and to no-longer-COTS parts, so any Q&A interpretation of <R32> can't be construed as applying to other items (like unused old kit parts which are currently COTS), unless they say so explicitly and provide justification.

In terms of actually implementing this rule, it seems to me that FIRST ought to be publishing a complete list of parts that are potentially excluded under <R32>, part B. How else can teams easily and definitively determine the legality of a re-used item? They're not necessarily privy to what was developed especially for FIRST, and what's just a donated part—and under most circumstances, I bet this question won't even cross their minds.